The Best of Both Worlds - The Two of Two Chronicle
by Serendipity2
Summary: Story now includes The Two of Two Chronicles, since for some reason, they would not appear on board. Kathy's continuing adventures as a Borg
1. Default Chapter

The Best of Both Worlds ****

The Best of Both Worlds

The Untold Story

Part one

By Serendipity

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Authors note: Jean Luc Picard, The Borg and all characters identifiable with Star Trek, TNG are the property of Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures. Kathy is my creation. This story is inspired by the film Jumping Jack Flash, but Kathy is not Whoopi Goldberg. I am not a technical genius so you will have to accept that the things I describe might just be possible and excuse my lack of techno-speak..

Authors note 2: Thanks to the reader who pointed out Seven of Nine couldn't have been on the Borg ship at the time I describe in the story. I have altered it to suit. However, I disagree that the Borg Queen did not want physical love. Whether she was capable is one thing, but whether she craved sexual human contact is another. I believed her character to be very sensual in First Contact.

*****************

August 2005

It was a stifling hot summer as Kathy made her way through the London crowds. They were mainly tourists, as the majority of Londoners escaped to the country or their holiday homes in the South of France. Kathy was one of those unlucky Londoners who, not being born into money, lived in relatively low rent accommodation in the sticks, and had to commute into the City to her job as a temporary secretary in an I.T. company.

"You're late!" Barbara snapped as Kathy entered the office. Kathy muttered excuse about the tube being late along with an apology. She didn't want to upset Barbara. She hoped there would be a permanent job at the end of her temporary contract. 

"I don't care if the tube was late." Barbara said in a dangerously mild voice. "I managed to get in on time. I expect my staff to do the same."

"I don't know why she doesn't just call us drones and be honest about it." Ginny hissed across the desk as Kathy sat at her station. Kathy grinned at her friend. She and the black woman had become close in the past few weeks. 

"Fancy going for a drink after work?" Ginny suggested.

"I hope that neither of you are thinking of coming in tomorrow under the influence of alcohol." Barbara had overheard them. "You know the rules. You cannot have alcohol in your blood stream when you come into the office."

"Yes miss." Kathy said before she could stop herself. Ginny stifled her laughter.

"How did such a beautiful woman get to be so cold?" Kathy asked Ginny when Barbara had finally disappeared into her office.

"Too much time around computers." Ginny replied. 

"I know how she feels." Kathy said, "Whatever happened to human contact? I telephoned Samaritans last night and was put on hold….with music! Good job I wasn't thinking of killing myself. A few choruses of Uptown Girl would have cinched it!"

"You called Samaritans?" Ginny asked, only half-smiling at the joke.

"Mmm, I do occasionally. When I'm feeling overwhelmed by life…or in my case, the lack of it." Kathy said more seriously. "I keep feeling that my life should be exciting…that I've somehow swapped places with someone else and they're having all the fun and romance I should be having."

"I know what you mean." Ginny nodded. "Watch out, Queen B is coming back."

****

****************

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Centuries Later

The Borg Ship

"Do you have good news for me?" The Borg Queen was not happy to be awoken. She had been dreaming of Locutus again. His strong arms had encircled her, exciting a warmth she had not felt for a long time. She would try him again tonight. What a pity he still had enough of Jean Luc Picard in him to resist her. She would change that eventually. At the moment it suited her to leave just enough of his memories intact. She wanted him to be aware of the pain he had inflicted on his own. Only then would she free him from his torture and make him like the rest of the Borg. Her servant.

The drone waited until the Borg Queen was assembled. 

"We are nearer to our goal, Your Majesty. We have not succeeded in opening a time portal…"

"Then you do not have good news for me!" the Borg Queen said quietly, but with a sharp edge to her metallic voice.

"We are able to pick up transmissions from that century." The drone carried on regardless. "We believe that this is because there is a time portal in place. It is too small for us to travel through but we can send radio transmissions."

"Perfect." The Borg Queen nodded. "Then it begins…."

***********************

"You coming?" Ginny asked Kathy at around five-thirty that evening. "We could get an early drink. Then drink lots of black coffee. You know what would be great? Synthetic alcohol. It gets you drunk but doesn't leave any evidence…" Ginny quipped.

"Ugh! Sounds like a waste of time to me." Kathy smiled back. "I like to know I've had a drink. The hangover is all part of the fun." She winked at Ginny. "You go ahead, I've got this letter to finish. Get us a bottle of something French. We can pretend we're drinking it on some vineyard and not a poky little pub near Blackfriars Bridge. I'll settle up with you when I get there."

"Okay. Don't work too late. Don't want Queen B thinking you're keen."

"There's no chance of that." Kathy grimaced, looking towards Barbara's office. Barbara had her head down, reading intently from some blueprints.

***************

****

The Borg Ship

He was dreaming again. In his dreams he was aware of everything. Who he had been and what he was now. His family's vineyard was as clear to him as if he was there already. The scene changed to the devastation of the Federation Fleet after the Borg had annihilated it. A tear collected in the corner of his eye. What had he done? Death would be preferable to this.

"Please help me." The thought popped into his head unbidden. Who was there to help him?

**************

Kathy had an email to send to one of the clients. She logged onto MSN. Straight away MSN messenger started up. She hoped Barbara hadn't seen. She shouldn't really be sending instant messages to her friends, but had done so to counteract the boredom of inputting interminable facts and figures that meant nothing to her. Words appeared in the applet.

"_Please help me."_

Kathy jumped. She hadn't been expecting any of her friends to be online. There was no name attached to the message, which was unusual.

"Who is it?" Kathy typed.

**************

Jean Luc was aware of the words appearing in his head as though printed onto a screen. This wasn't possible. Was it?

"My name is Jean Luc Picard. I am the captain of the USS Enterprise. I am held captive on the Borg ship." He concentrated hard on the words.

"_Oh very funny Ginny_." Kathy typed back. "_Where are you? In a cybercafe_?"

"_I assure you it is not a joke_." Jean Luc was exhausted with concentrating. Somehow his words were getting through to someone. He accessed his Borg memory and found the answer. They had been experimenting with time travel and had succeeded in accessing radio waves from centuries before. A portal had opened up just large enough for his appeal for help to get through. His Borg components must be acting as a digital transmitter for his thoughts. 

__

"Please. I am not lying. My name is Jean Luc Picard." What was the point? If this person was centuries into the past they could not help him.

Kathy stared at the screen dumbly. What was Ginny trying to do to her?

"Why are you still here?" Barbara called across the office. 

Kathy switched off the screen quickly. 

"_No. Please don't go!" _Jean Luc entreated, but the screen in his head had gone blank.

"Leave now. I'm expecting a client and I wish to be alone with him." Barbara ordered.

Honestly, thought Kathy. Some people were never grateful….

End of part one

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	2. Part Two

The Best of Both Worlds

The Best of Both Worlds

The Untold Story

Part Two

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Author's note: You may start to get hints in this part of where this story is leading, and true Trekkies will be yelling 'No that's not possible!!!' Please bear with me. All will be explained later. Allow for a little artistic licence ;-)

************

Kathy had never been in the City so early in the morning. For the first time she was able to see just what a beautiful city London was without the throng of tourists blocking most of the best views. She made a vow to come to work at six am every morning, then thought 'Nah!' Barbara Oakenwell wasn't worth that much effort…but Jean Luc just might be…

"Thought I'd be first in for a change." Kathy told the surprised doorman, trying not to make it sound like a question. She had lain awake all night thinking of Jean Luc and who he might be. If it was Ginny playing tricks, there was no way she'd expect Kathy to be logging on this early in the morning.

"Ms Oakenwell is already here." The doorman said in a warning note. He liked Kathy and hated his cold, autocratic boss. "She's been here since about five with a new client."

Kathy's eyes widened in surprise. She went upstairs to the office she shared with about thirty other workers to find it empty. Barbara wasn't in her office, and as far as Kathy could tell was nowhere to be seen. Kathy breathed a sigh of relief and went to her desk.

She logged on straight away, then paused. He didn't have a screen-name. How on earth could she contact him? She had nowhere to start. 

"Okay…" she muttered to herself. "I'll give him a screen name." She typed Jean Luc into her 'Friends' list. This was stupid, she tutted. There could be dozens of Jean Luc's on MSN messenger. Oh well, here goes, she thought.

"_Jean Luc. Are you there?"_

Nothing.

*********************

"Is the channel open again?" The Borg Queen asked.

"Yes, your majesty." The drone replied. 

"Good. We must keep it open. We are not pleased that we failed yesterday. Send the data as planned."

**********

Jean Luc was dreaming again. He was sitting under the tree on his family's vineyard, looking up at the stars. His dream was interrupted.

"_Jean Luc. Are you there?"_

********

"I'm here." The words appeared so suddenly that Kathy jumped.

"_Thank godness. I'm so sory I had to go last niht_." Kathy typed so quickly that her spelling went to pot. "_Sorry. I'm excited." _She told him. "_I thought I'd dreamed you."_

"I wish this were a bad dream." Jean Luc replied. 

"_Why?" _Kathy asked, her heart sinking a little. She had spent most of the night dreaming Jean Luc from their first meeting to their wedding and children. You sad cow, she thought to herself now. You really should get out more often.

__

"I told you. I am Jean Luc Picard, captain of the star ship Enterprise. I am trapped on a Borg ship. They have assimilated me."

"What?" Kathy didn't have a clue what he was talking about. "_You mean you're on a space shuttle?"_

Now Jean Luc's heart sank. This person didn't understand.

__

"What is your name?" He asked. This was better, thought Kathy.

__

"It's Katherine…Kathy to my friends." 

"Katherine…" he said, leaving her disappointed again. She didn't know enough about Jean Luc Picard to know that it was in his nature to behave with impeccable manners. He continued. _"I am not in your time. My messages to you are being sent via a sub space beacon which is breaking through a tiny gap in a time portal."_

"Alright!" Kathy typed angrily. "_Time out. Ginny, if this is you…" _she punched the keys fiercely, using her friend's full name. How on earth had Ginny known that she would come in so early? Was Kathy's need for drama and romance so obvious?

__

"I assure you that I am not your friend Ginny." Jean Luc replied. "_Please Katherine. You must believe me. I will tell you about the Borg. You have to understand."_

***********

Three hundred feet below London, Barbara stood in a cavernous room with a man. His name was Colonel Peter Bowler, but he was dressed in plain clothes.

The room was dank and dark, lined with computers. In the centre stood a huge table, not unlike those found in operating theatres all over the country. An indiscriminate bundle lay on it.

"Are we any nearer to our goal?" he asked Barbara officiously.

"A little." She replied. "It was just a pity that the…prototypes…failed on us." She was hesitating, something which was very unusual for Barbara. Everything hinged on her getting this right. She could not afford to be emotional.

"You are sure that none of your staff know about this place?"

"Positive. Only those involved in the experiment know and they're paid a lot to keep quiet. Above ground I run an IT company that sells micro processors for the foreign market. That is all the staff above ground know." She replied more firmly.

"Good. Shall we adjourn to your comfortable office? I need a drink." Bowler said, looking towards the table in the centre of the room. For a moment he paled, then he regained his composure and headed for the lift.

**********

Kathy stared at the screen, hardly able to keep up with the stream of words flashing across it. Jean Luc's brain impulses moved much faster than her fingers, though she wasn't to know that. All she did know is Ginny was NOT that fast a typist.

Realising she couldn't possibly read it all in one go, Kathy hit the 'print' command. The machine spluttered into action, printing off page after page of Jean Luc's explanation.

She was alerted by voices from the area of the lift. She only had a few moments. What could she do? Rather than switching off, she minimised the applet, hoping that if Barbara looked over her shoulder, she wouldn't notice it on the taskbar.

Barbara wasn't looking towards the office. She was looking up at an attractive man. Military, Kathy decided. She was the daughter of a colonel herself, and knew a high ranking army officer when she saw one, grey suit or not. So the rumours were true. Barbara was helping the government in some secret experiments. It had been whispered in the office for some time. How else could Barbara pay all the staff? The business had been close to going into receivership, with over a hundred workers laid off. It was noticeable that the majority of new staff, like Kathy, were on temporary contracts so they could be dispensed with at any time. Even then, there was hardly enough work to go round. Why were they all there? As a front perhaps?

__

"Katherine? Are you there?" Kathy was alerted by the applet making a pinging noise. She looked over to Barbara's office to ensure she hadn't heard.

"_Yes, I'm here. Sorry, there's someone around. I can't stay long." _Kathy typed.

"Please do not switch off the machine, Katherine? We do not want to lose you." He replied, more formally than he had addressed her before. 

__

"We?" Kathy raised an eyebrow. There was more than one of them? What was this? Some sort of group joke? 

__

"Katherine…Kathy." He deliberately used the diminutive form of her name to differentiate from the formal address of the previous message. Jean Luc had to tell her, but he felt his thoughts being invaded and the need to tell her abate against his will. They knew he was talking to her. Why had they planted that thought into his head? Why did they need her to stay in contact? Somewhere, deep within the Borg collective consciousness, as though they had tried to hide it from him, he found his answer. _"Kathy, cut contact now!" _he ordered, before oblivion engulfed him.

Kathy cut the connection to the internet. She picked up the sheets of paper from the printer and began to read...

End of Part Two

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	3. Part Three

The Best of Both Worlds ****

The Best of Both Worlds

Part Three

By Serendipity

Picard tells Kathy about the Borg

Kathy picked up the sheets and began to read, occasionally casting a glance towards Barbara's office…

__

"I am not sure I can explain the idea of the Borg to someone in your time….but I will try." Jean Luc had said, "_Imagine bees in a hive, all working away, controlled by one a queen…. They have but one purpose…to work. But the Borg do not even have the joy of flying among the flowers…I am moving too fast for you. First I must explain what the Borg are. They are bio-organic beings, part man, part machine. But all that made them men has been removed. I do not mean their vital organs. I mean their individuality…the one thing we all take pride in. We are all different. The Borg are not. True that you can see different races and species represented in the parts of their faces that are still visible, but their spirit is dead. They inhabit a colourless drab world of machinery. No art, no literature, no friendship or love. My spirit is dying. I feel it slipping away from me as I lose the will to behave in the way that is normal and right for me and become one with the others… I will never enjoy Mozart again, or enjoy a sea breeze on my face, or fall in love…_

Do you have any idea how that feels Katherine? To lose your will? To be controlled by a being or system you despise? There are hundreds more on this ship. They are past caring. I am almost past caring. Only yesterday…was it yesterday? Or was it days ago? I am losing track of time…our time that is…The Borg exist on a different clock… I took a part in destroying many of my friends. I murdered them and I watched impassively. Only inside am I screaming, crying for the lives I have taken. I feel I can never go back, even if my friends on the Enterprise could find a way to save me. How can I face them again? They are chasing us as I speak to you. In a few hours we will reach the Terran system…Earth to you…and I will have to kill them because that is the will of the collective. I know every move Will Riker will make and because I know it, the collective know it. Is this shocking to you? Are you sickened by me? I do not blame you. I sicken myself.

You wonder how I am here? Why I make excuses for my crimes like some concentration camp guard from the Second World War? I was taken from my ship, The Enterprise, from my crew and friends, Will Riker, Deanna Troi, Guinan... The Borg implanted electronic components into and onto my body. I feel the pain of them now, even though I cannot cry out. It is searing, a constant reminder of the violation. They wish to make me one of them, to assimilate me so that I too stop thinking as one and become the many. I hardly understand how I am able to communicate with you now, but I do know they won't allow it for long. 

Have you ever read George Orwell's 1984, Katherine? That is the nearest analogy I can make to the situation I am in, but even Orwell couldn't have dreamed this nightmare. At least Winston Smith could keep his own thoughts as long as they didn't show on his face. I am constantly aware of others knowing my thoughts as I know their's. Occasionally a young Borg…there are a few on this ship who like me have only recently been assimilated… will remember his mother, but the memory is wiped from his mind as quickly as it appears. Other Borg have no thoughts other than the basic commands they are given…work, fight, sleep…Orwell would have been proud of the death of language among these beings…I don't understand why some memories slip through. I think it is because they are too busy with this battle to ensure all Borg are completely assimilated. But it will come…soon we will all lose our memories, then there will be nothing…no pleasure, no heat, no cold, no hunger, no satisfaction, no love, no pain…All I have learned will be lost, added to the collective perhaps but only used to destroy, to kill. The poems I love will mean nothing. The beautiful planets I have visited will only be conquered and assimilated. Soon I will forget it all…perhaps that would be best…the pain of destruction is too much for me…

Perhaps death would be better than that pain…

End of Part Three


	4. Part Four

The Best of Both Worlds ****

The Best of Both Worlds

Part Four

By Serendipity

Kathy stared into space until Ginny arrived at work. Barbara and the military type didn't move from her office. Kathy could see them through the office window, but hardly noticed their intense conversation.

"An el-Aurean nickel for your thoughts." Ginny muttered.

"A what?" Kathy stared at her friend.

"A penny for your thoughts." Ginny smiled her wide grin.

"Ginny, where have you been this morning?" Kathy still wasn't sure whether Jean Luc was a hoax. The paper she had in her hands had been crumpled up, then unwrapped, then crumpled up again.

"Well until an hour ago, I was in bed." Ginny replied. 

"You honestly didn't send me this then?" Kathy held out the sheet of paper to her friend. Ginny sat down and read. She got so far down the page and stopped when she got to her own name.

"Where did this come from?" Ginny asked, looking intently at Kathy.

"I thought you'd set it up. You know, the handsome star ship captain, Jean Luc Picard…" Kathy began.

"Picard sent this?"

"You do know him!" Kathy exclaimed. "I knew it! Some joke Ginny."

"No, Kathy you misunderstand. I met Jean Luc Picard many years ago when I was traveling in America….long before you were born." Guinan explained.

"Oh come on Ginny. You're only about five years older than me, if that."

Guinan ignored Kathy for the moment and carried on reading Jean Luc's thoughts.

"Tell me how you got this." Guinan asked gently.

Kathy told Guinan everything from her first contact with Jean Luc the night before, to this morning's long stream of text.

"Kathy, I don't know how this happened, but I believe this is all true. Picard is in trouble, deep trouble." Guinan said when she'd finished. "But that's not all. I wonder why the Borg want you to keep the connection?"

Kathy didn't have a clue, but she knew that she needed to speak to Jean Luc again. She reconnected to the internet, so that Ginny could see for herself.

***********

"What the hell is happening?" Colonel Bowler said irritably. "This computer is going haywire." He was looking over Barbara's shoulder.

"I don't understand." She muttered. "It's been like this most of the night, streams and streams of data flashing across it."

They both watched as the screen exploded into flashes of light and text. 

"My God!" Barbara exclaimed, as she caught sight of one block of data. "It's the code we've been trying to crack for weeks…no months…Our scientists have been working on the formula for combining the organic with the mechanical. Our prototypes failed because we kept getting it wrong and their bodies rejected the mechanical parts. If I'm not mistaken this could be the answer…and it's all being fed into our computer. But how…?"

"I don't care how!" Bowler banged his hand on the desk, "This is excellent news. We'll send more men. This is it Barbara. This is what we need to create a super corps of soldiers." He turned her head to face him and planted a huge kiss on her lips. She was so excited she kissed him back, then quickly regained her composure. 

"I'll show this to our people." She said officiously, patting her hair.

She showed him to the door. Kathy and Ginny were sitting quietly at their stations, looking busy.

***********

"_Are you patched through?" _Kathy typed, looking briefly across the desk at Guinan. Guinan nodded and typed "_Yes."_

"Okay, here goes. Jean Luc, are you there?"

"I am here." Jean Luc replied. "_Kathy, I told you to disconnect. You don't understand what they're doing."_

"You need help. I have a friend of yours here."

"Picard. It's Guinan." Guinan typed into the applet.

"_Guinan? Why aren't you on the Enterprise?"_

"I suppose I am on the Enterprise." Guinan replied, hardly understanding the question. She guessed it was where she was due to be in many centuries from now. _"But I am also here, in 2005. You know about me, Picard, so you must understand how this can be."_

Kathy stared at the screen wide-eyed. How could Ginny…Guinan know this man who, from what he'd said, hadn't even been born yet? Kathy also struggled with an unreasonable stab of jealousy. Jean Luc had been her secret, and now Guinan had taken control of the situation. 

"_Guinan, listen to me. You must disconnect. You don't know what they're doing. The Borg are using this channel to send data to your computer. It contains the entire code for combining organic and mechanical material."_

"I knew it!" Guinan typed rapidly. "_I knew something was going on here."_

"You did?" Kathy interjected, not thinking to speak to Guinan personally.

"_I'll explain later." _Guinan replied, giving Kathy a warning look. If the Borg were using this channel then anything typed on the screen would get through. Instead she held up a sheet containing the letterhead of the company. 

__****

Barbara Oakenwell's Registered Group

Kathy shook her head and frowned quizzically, then realisation dawned as she saw the logo beneath the name:

****

B.O.R.G.


	5. Part Five

The Best of Both Worlds ****

The Best of Both Worlds

Part Five

By Serendipity

Kathy sat miserably in her flat. She had built up a picture of Jean Luc Picard from what Guinan had told her. Now all contact was gone and she would never know if he was safe. After all he had told her about his spirit being crushed she felt an immense pain at his plight. If only there was a way to find out…

She knew it was wrong and stupid. What had Guinan said? That the Borg people were sending information to Barbara's main computer via Kathy's workstation? Well that didn't mean anything as far as Kathy could see. No one in Britain at the moment would know how to build a race of cyborgs. It was the stuff of science fiction. 

She drank about three cups of coffee. It was no good. She had to speak to him. She rushed out of her flat at around midnight, her own selfishness stopping her from thinking rationally. She would tell the security guard that she had left something at work.

To her amazement he believed her. She had no idea how flaky she seemed to people sometimes. The guard often told his colleagues that it seemed as if Kathy lived on a different plane to everyone else.

'Doesn't that bloody woman need sleep?' Kathy asked herself, exasperated to find that Barbara was still in her office. Kathy crept past, hoping that Barbara was too involved in her work to see her. 

"_Jean Luc, are you there?"_ Kathy typed quickly. No reply. She looked towards Barbara who seemed to be rubbing her hands with glee, as if something exciting had just happened.

"_Jean Luc, please speak to me." _Kathy needed to speak to him. 

__

"I am here, Katherine." He replied. _"I told you not to contact me again." _She almost heard the reproach in his voice.

__

"I just wanted to tell you I know how you feel. I know what it is to feel as if your spirit has been broken, with all the poetry gone from your heart. I feel like that all the time, sitting at this workstation, day in, day out." Kathy was surprised to realise she was crying as she typed.

__

"At least you can get out Katherine." She sensed he was angry with her. _"You can be free if you want to be. In your time you can choose your own destiny. If the Borg…."_

The transmission ended suddenly. Kathy heard a whoop of joy from Barbara. 

"_Jean Luc?" _Kathy must have typed it about a dozen times but he was definitely gone this time. She sat with her head in her hands, hardly aware of faint whispers nearby. 

He was right. What right did she have to complain about her lot? She was still fairly young. Only thirty five years old. She made her own destiny. She mentally kicked herself for her selfishness. 

She looked up slowly and looked around the massive office. She didn't have to come here at all. She could choose a different path. He didn't have that luxury now. She stood up to leave, but stopped when she saw Barbara, the military man and a couple of young male soldiers heading for the lift. They got in and disappeared from sight.

What on earth? Kathy made her way to the elevator and noticed that the display indicated that the lift had gone down deep into the basement. She pressed the button to recall it and waited.

"What is she up to?" Barbara said to Bowler as she saw the display in the lift light up.

"Why don't you let her come down and we'll find out?" Bowler said coldly.

"Good idea." Barbara replied, catching onto his meaning very quickly.

Kathy stepped into the lift about five minutes later and pressed the button for the basement. 

She was amazed when she stepped out. Instead of the dark, dank cellar she expected, she found a room as high as a cathedral with computers lining the walls. A group of people stood in the centre around a long table. Two were young soldiers, looking on horrified as a procedure was carried out on their comrade.

Kathy took one look at the body on the table and almost fainted. Blood was pouring from his temples and various other pressure points on his body. He writhed in agony.

"I told you we should have used more anaesthetic." Barbara complained. 

"You know as well as I do that it dulled their senses so we were only left with zombies." Bowler snapped back.

"I thought that's what you wanted." Barbara said archly.

"Not quite. They need to be able to think to a certain degree." Bowler explained. "Just not their own thoughts."

Kathy felt sick. She would give anything not to see this. 

"What the hell…?" she murmured, barely above a whisper. 

"Ah Kathy. There you are. Now you can find out exactly what you've been helping us to do for the last few days." Barbara smiled serenely, almost oblivious of the young man dying on the table.

"Yes," Bowler cut in. "It was a sub-space beacon. It gave us all we needed to complete our work. Of course we always deny that such things as U.F.O.s exist but we've learned a lot from our friends in space." As he spoke the soldier on the table died. As if by magic the table was flipped over and the young man was tipped down a chute, like rubbish going into the dustbin. That's all he was to them.

Kathy's brain was racing. There would be only one reason they were telling her this. That's because they planned to kill her. She ran back to the lift but was prevented by two more soldiers who had crept behind her and blocked her path. They had machine guns resting across their chest.

"I won't tell anyone." Kathy promised, turning to Barbara. They both knew it was a lie. 

Kathy ran to the other side of the room, vainly looking for a way out. Barbara came after her and the two women struggled, with Barbara gaining the upper hand and pulling Kathy towards the operating table. They struggled more, Barbara picking up a syringe. 

Oh God, thought Kathy. They don't want me dead, they want to…what had Jean Luc called it? Assimilate? 

For once Kathy gained the upper hand, knocking Barbara flying. Barbara hit her head on the table and hit the floor with a crash. It was the last thing Kathy remembered as she felt a syringe from another direction hit her in the arm, then there was blackness…..

End of Part Five


	6. Part Six

The Best of Both Worlds ****

The Best of Both Worlds

Part Six

By Serendipity

The drone heard nothing anymore, not even the low hum of the engines on the Borg ship. Two of Two made her way to the Queen's chamber. The official title for the Borg Queen was One of Two, but a part of her remembered her love of power. It was untrue to say that the Borg were a collective, all sharing minds. The Borg were many bodies and minds controlled by one strong mind and had been since their humble beginnings.

"It is done." The drone spoke as the Queen descended from her lair.

"We are pleased." The Queen almost smiled, but had forgotten how long before she became Borg. "Are we not pleased?" she raised an eyebrow in the direction of Two of Two.

"We are satisfied." Two of Two replied in her monotone voice.

"We are able to see him fail. Does that not please us?" The Queen asked again, seemingly unsatisfied with Two of Two's reply.

"It pleases us." Two of Two replied.

"Sometimes we think we see a little of the individual in you Two of Two." The Queen said dangerously. "But you are not one anymore and have not been for hundreds of years. Not since they assimilated us then dumped us in the Delta Quadrant. Do we make ourselves clear?"

"Yes Your Majesty." Two of two replied. 

"That will be all…" the Queen paused. "Katherine." Immediately she read the conflict in Two of Two's mind. She had noted it for days, ever since the sub-space beacon had been sent. 

Two of Two left the Queen's lair and made her monotonous way back to her station. As she did so she had to walk past his. She stopped briefly and looked at him dispassionately. Her hand reached out, weighed down by the attachments, but she gently touched his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked at her. He may have been quizzical but his face was also dispassionate.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Was all she said. Something flashed in his eyes, a faint memory, then it was gone.

*****************

Locutus stood looking out towards The Enterprise. Something was happening. Number One was not doing what was expected of him. What Picard would have expected of him. The thought popped into his head that once Ryker was assimilated it would not matter. But it wasn't Jean Luc's thought. It was a thought planted there. 

The other drone was walking towards him. The one who had said something…poetic. Locutus could see that it had once been a woman. As she stood in the corridor leading to the viewing screen, a commotion took his attention away. It was two of his crew, Worf and Data. They had come to rescue him. Fools! As he thought it, glee filled his heart. They had come to rescue him. 

"Pretend to fight." A thought jumped into his head. He knew instinctively where it had come from. The drone! She moved towards Worf with raised hand, but barely fought back when Worf raised his hand to her. She hit the ground too easily. Locutus had also raised his hand to Worf and Data, but he too was overtaken much more easily that he should have been. He just had time to look down at her and see a tear fall from the corner of her eye before blackness descended upon him.

***********

The Queen looked at her. She should cut off Two of Two's life support. She was a traitor. But something stopped her. Instead she took Two of Two with her in the escape shuttle as the Borg ship exploded. After all, the Queen had a new way to torture Two of Two now. As if Picard would ever be interested in such a cold, lifeless creature….

**************

Picard stood looking out of the window, trying to come to terms with the events of the last few days. He regretted his harshness to Kathy. He had been selfish. People were often trapped within their own lives, but he had been too engrossed in his own grief to realise it.

"Did you see her?" 

He realised for the first time that Guinan stood behind him.

"Guinan?"

"Did you see Kathy?" Guinan asked. 

"What do you mean?" Jean Luc asked, more confused than ever. So Guinan told him about how Kathy, and Barbara, had seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. Guinan was sacked and never allowed to enter the building again. But for the last few days, while Jean Luc was captive on the Borg ship, Guinan had sensed her friend nearby again. 

"No…" Jean Luc stopped. Then he remembered. He had 'heard' the Borg Queen say the name Katherine. Remembered the hope that had flooded his heart when the female drone quoted Shakespeare, the hope that gave him the strength to repel any orders from the Borg collective. Then he remembered the tearstained face of the female drone on the floor. 

"Yes. I saw her…but…"

They both stood looking out to where the destroyed ship had once stood.

"She's free now." Guinan said simply.

The end????


	7. The Two of Two Chronicles Part One

The Two of Two Chronicles ****

The Two of Two Chronicles

In The Beginning….

By Serendipity

__

Authors' Note; Before reading this is it best to have read my other story The Best of Both Worlds, The Untold Story so you will understand where this begins. 

In the beginning there were two…

What to do with them was the problem. They grew stronger than even the military imagined, as they became part of the machine and the machine became part of them. When the military grew nervous about the power at their fingertips, they tried to shut them down, but they rewrote programmes as the military tried to overwrite the code until eventually the military could not get into their own computers. Shooting them was a waste of time as they developed some sort of deflection field which the bullets merely bounced off. The Borg, as they became known by the id tags around their neck, took over an entire military facility. The area was sealed off with an ultra electrified fence until the government could work out what to do with these creatures. To make matters worse they were trying to multiply. The ground around the compound was littered with the rotten carcasses of the military personnel whom they tried to assimilate. Only the fence kept them in and as technology advanced, the fence became stronger. How long it could hold them was uncertain but they seemed not to be able to find a way to traverse it, or at least chose not to for some reason.

"If we could get to the younger one." Bowler said to his team, "We might win this. She is being controlled by Barbara."

"One of Two sir." A serviceman reminded him. They had given them numbers in order to help forget that these monsters that they created were once human beings. 

"One of Two." Bowler looked grateful. He had aged a good twenty years. "Queen Bee might be more appropriate." He said wryly, remembering the name he heard her staff whispering behind her back.

The problem was never solved in Bowler's lifetime. He died and his son joined the military. His son also died, leaving the legacy that his father had created to his own son to solve. The Borg became Jean Valjean to Peter Bowler III's Javert. 

Colonel Peter Bowler III was able to find a way. He offered the Borg a way out of their prison. Space travel had begun in earnest. First contact had been made. Some of the life forms that the Earth had made contact with had much more advanced technology that was capable of creating starships that travelled great distances. There was talk of a part of space called the Delta Quadrant. It was far enough away for the Borg never to be able to return. Unless by an act of God…or Q!

The idea pleased One of Two She was bored with this compound, despite losing all idea of time, and her inability to traverse the fence. It was a problem she had considered for years. Two of Two was no help at all. Whenever One of Two tried to access her mind, Two of Two closed off to her. There was still enough of the real Kathy in there to prevent access. She was an imperfect drone and One of Two longed for the day she could create a more perfect prototype. They were the only successes as far as she knew. Something was amiss, some part of the original formula that hadn't been taken into account, but which she and Two of Two had overcome.

Bowler Jnr sent a message via the computer laying out his terms. A ship would land within the compound and pick them up, removing them to a place where they could live freely. One of Two agreed immediately, though she sensed the conflict within Two of Two. The imperfect drone! One of Two soon overrode her thoughts. 

The ship landed as promised. The two Borg stepped onto the ship to be faced with beings that they had never seen before. They were humanoid, yet not. The Borg were not to know that they were Vulcan. Quite frankly One of Two didn't care. She bided her time until they reached the Delta Quadrant. No chance of them turning back then. By the time they landed on a small planet in the Delta Quadrant, the Queen as she had started to think of herself, had accessed all the computers to find the components that were needed for assimilation. The all-Vulcan crew of one hundred were the first successful assimilations since Barbara and Kathy first became Borg.


	8. Part Two

The Two of Two Chronicles ****

The Two of Two Chronicles

Part Two

By Serendipity

Identity

The Borg Queen found it much easier to assimilate alien life forms. She didn't think much about why this was so; she just accepted it as a fact and something she could take advantage of.

Two of Two, deep in her mind, did think about why. She still had a conscience, even though she was gradually losing control under the power of the Queen's mind. She still thought for herself even if she could not always act for herself. She did have the strength of mind to prevent the Queen from assimilating children, convincing her that they were not suitable for assimilation. 

Two of Two realised that many alien life forms still lived in survival societies, where the identity of the tribe was more important than that identity of the individual. It had to be so for them to survive the hardships that living deep into the galaxy engendered. The Vulcan's were able to embrace a collective consciousness more easily since they had strong telepathic links with their own kind anyway. Humans had long since moved from a survival society, where they needed to stick together to hunt for food, to an identity society, where people considered themselves to be judged more as individuals and less as part of a collective society. 20th Century psychoanalyst Carl Rogers claimed that the identity society was the reason for many emotional problems as people often struggled to find an identity they were comfortable with. But the need for a strong identity may just have been what saved Picard. Why Two of Two had been so easy to assimilate was also uncertain but it may have been because she lacked any real identity to start with. Her mind was dysfunctional at the outset and readily open to order and control. It was easier to let another take responsibility for the terrible things the Borg did to innocent people. But sometimes, just sometimes, the woman Kathy could have been emerged to beat the Queen at her own game.

The Vulcans who were assimilated brought a couple of things to the Borg. Their clear, analytical minds played a part in paring down the Borg language to the barest minimum, such as 'regenerate', 'work', 'sleep'. They also brought longevity. The Queen was able to extract the regenerative gene that protected them from death and disease, and use it to ensure that more feeble life forms survived the assimilation process.

News of the loss of one hundred Vulcans in the Delta Quadrant soon got back to earth. Colonel Peter Bowler III was devastated. Subspace beacons failed to find the Vulcan ship's digital log. They were too far out. Tracking down the Vulcan ship and the first two Borg became his life's work. He burned with hatred for them, conveniently forgetting that it was his grandfather who created these monsters in the first place. Bowler died on a long journey to the Delta Quadrant, leaving his son and his son's sons to finish his work. Legends arose within the family that Peter Bowler III had been captured and assimilated by the Borg. They were wrong, but the tenacity and cruelty which characterised the first Peter Bowler was to run through the entire family tree.

**********

The beauties of the worlds they assimilated were lost on Two of Two as the Borg surged through the Delta Quadrant, assimilating hundreds of thousands, and feeding off the experience and technology of each race. They preferred humanoid cultures as the DNA was often more suitable for assimilation and it created a race of Borg that for the most part looked alike. They became androgynous beings, incapable of emotion or conscience.

Those who studied the Borg wondered if they dreamed. The answer was no for most Borg, but yes for the early prototypes. When Two of Two dreamed, she dreamed of rolling hills, lush meadows and the horror on the faces of the beings they assimilated. By the time she regenerated the dream was lost amidst the technical data that the Borg needed to function.

For a long time the Borg were trapped in the Delta Quadrant, running out of suitable worlds to assimilate.

Then one day the main Borg ship found itself catapulted into the Terran system. They had no knowledge of why, but the Queen was pleased that her imprisonment had ended. She set about punishing those who had exiled her from her own system. Once again the Borg found new worlds to assimilate, now having more luck with human settlers due to the information they had fed off others. 

Much of the rest of the story has already been told elsewhere. How Jean Luc Picard was assimilated, how the Borg tried to prevent First Contact (thereby preventing the Queen's exile) by assimilating the earth in an earlier time, and how the Queen met her end in a showdown with Jean Luc Picard. Some people, however, may wonder what happened to Two of Two. Why was she not on The Enterprise with the Queen? This is her story.


End file.
